Denver Public Schools District Leadership & Board Members,
We are a coalition of community organizations that represent a wide variety of interests and
perspectives in Denver. On some issues, we are very aligned and on others, we are in very
different places. We believe Denver is at a unique moment in time to revisit important
conversations around school quality.
We have come together because we are aligned on one thing: that Denver Public Schools should
launch a community process to examine how we measure school quality in order to have a more
comprehensive view of how we are preparing our students for life. We believe that we need to
have clear and consistent signals to families and educators about school quality for all learners,
and we believe it is time for Denver Public Schools to open a community dialogue on this critical
issue.
For the past ten years, Denver Public Schools has led the country in transparent data about
school performance. The School Performance Framework, while debated by many, was one of
the first multiple measures tool to be utilized by a large school district. It includes state and local
assessment information, student and parent surveys alongside college/career readiness
information. However, in recent years, a variety of intersecting challenges have impeded the
ability for the School Performance Framework to deliver on the clear signals to educators and
families that are needed.
For a variety of reasons, there have been important reflections about the School Performance
Framework (SPF). From constant internal revisions to a lack of public feedback in the tool itself,
the past few years have seen swings in results and support. There are serious concerns about the
extent to which the SPF has become the “be all, end all” for conversations about quality and
equity in the system. This reduces the ability for discussions about school quality to be clear and
focused, complicating families, students, administrators, and teachers’ abilities to make
meaningful use of the information. The SPF has struggled to signal real whole child indicators
and induce creative school models. Potentially most consequentially, families and communities
have not been brought to the design table in the past few years to substantively inform the SPF
and DPS measures of school quality. All of these issues together leave room for cynicism, doubt
and uneven agreement in how DPS currently measures school quality with negative implications
for much of how DPS tries to tackle inequalities in the system. Yet it is very critical that we have
measurement tools and resources so that families and communities can have real information
about school quality.
We believe there is an opportunity for your leadership to take us to the next chapter in
building a shared vision for how schools serve students, families and communities.
First, we are asking you to use the information that you collected from the Superintendent search
to reflect on what our community sees as quality. This may require additional targeted
conversations during Susana’s entry plan. This can open up meaningful discussions about what
school quality means to Denver families now and in the future along with how it should be
measured and communicated. We feel like we are at a unique moment in time to use this
feedback to show families and communities DPS can be responsive.

 Second, we ask you to assemble a working group of community members and other experts to
work to address the community feedback you’ve received to assess where we stand in
monitoring school quality. This group will be charged with hearing and incorporating
community perspectives, seeing where we DPS tools stand compared to the feedback,
considering new possibilities, and making implementable recommendations to DPS on how the
next generation of school quality measurement is conducted.
Lastly, we ask you to charge an existing or new district group to monitor and advise efforts on
school quality measurement for over the long-term. This independent and representative group
should work with DPS staff and the board to consider all potential adjustments and changes to
policy and practice. Its membership should refresh periodically to maintain an ongoing and
current perspective. This is critical to ensure school quality conversations live close to the
community - not far away at the state level.
While we do not know what the exact technical composition of new ways to measure school
quality will look like, we believe that these efforts can restore trust, generate better measures of
quality, and keep co-created solutions and oversight close to the families and students of Denver.
Most importantly, we believe it can create a collective vision for how we address the deep
inequities in our school system.
The School Performance Framework, despite its shortcomings, has helped foster a culture in
Denver where families ask important questions about school quality and the district makes
decisions with public facing tools. We believe the time has come to build what is next for our
collective future. It is our aspiration that these efforts yield a more expanded way of
understanding how students are prepared for life and that the communities of Denver will have a
direct role in showing us the way.
With respect,
Community Voice in School Quality Coalition
*Note: If groups are interested in joining our coalition please e-mail: dom@faithbridgeco.org

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